The National HIV/AIDS Strategy 1999-2000 to 2003-2004: Changes and Challenges

THIS DOCUMENT HAS BEEN RESCINDED: The National HIV/AIDS Strategy 1999-2000 to 2003-2004 builds on an important foundation established under previous HIV/AIDS Strategies - the partnership between and with affected communities, governments at all levels, and medical, scientific and healthcare professionals.

Page last updated: June 2000

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Australia's comprehensive national approach to responding to HIV/AIDS has long been regarded as one of the best in the world. From the endorsement of the first National HIV/AIDS Strategy in 1989 through to the conclusion of the third National HIV/AIDS Strategy in 1999, Australia has recognised the need for coordinated action in response to HIV.

The National HIV/AIDS Strategy 1999-2000 to 2003-2004 builds on an important foundation established under previous HIV/AIDS Strategies - the partnership between and with affected communities, governments at all levels, and medical, scientific and healthcare professionals.

The Strategy recognises the importance of establishing and maintaining operational links with other national population health strategies and is situated within a broader communicable diseases framework. It is the links between and the integration of these responses that will ensure both sustainability and maximum population health benefit.

The Strategy has been drafted to operate as a flexible framework for responding to the challenges it identifies as well as others that will undoubtably emerge during its five year term. The Strategy expresses a commitment by the nation to the pursuit of two goals, namely:

to eliminate the transmission of HIV; and

to minimise the personal and social impacts of HIV infection.

The document, while respectful of Australia's past efforts, looks both to Australia's present experience of HIV/AIDS and to the future of Australia's response in a global as well as local context.